Sermon John 12:12-19

Usually, I punt doing Palm Sunday and move into the sufferings of Christ on this Sunday. I have an eye for the tragic. John’s little piece got me thinking. Maybe the events of Palm Sunday helped get Jesus through the rest of that week. It’s is less an issue of bad things following good, but that we need the good to survive the tough times in life. It feels good to be cheered. Some folks chase it for themselves or their children all of their lives. Resilience may well need some good to help fuel its power when we face bad times. Yes, it is ironic that the same cheering crowds will soon cheer his death. Even in the bright sunshine of the hour, the people are still in the dark about Jesus, including his closest disciples.

My sense of the passage is that the people don’t grasp the significance, the religious significance of Jesus in Jerusalem. John has them raise palm branches, a sign of political freedom that we see on coins struck in that few generations before Jesus when Israel was free. They call him a king, and I wonder if they realized that they were quoting a psalm. He was called a king right away in the first chapter, but his is a different sort of kingdom. John makes sure that we know that Jesus rides as a prince of peace, not as a warrior. Jesus is in a death struggle, but not with Rome as much as deeper forces of darkness. His courage is there surely, but to be a victim of violence, not its agent. He is destined to be the lamb on the throne of Revelation. That lamb is also the Good Shepherd. The shepherd is not about to send people off to die as so may kings will. This king is all about healing and saving the lives of those yet unborn under his care.

From the start of John, he has been identified as the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. At the end, John makes sure that we know that the bones of Jesus are not broken, just like the unblemished lamb of the Passover in Exodus 12. Jesus embodies the ritual life of Israel. The sheep may recognize the voice of the shepherd, but we don’t always heed it. John has the disciples understanding only after the end. We read Scripture through the lens of the entirety of the life, death, resurrection ascension of Jesus. So it is that we read Jesus into the servant of Isaiah here. We read through the suffering and resurrection of Jesus. The words here cast an image always reflected where the end is a new beginning.

The Pharisees give up; “the world has gone after him” What they say is truer than they can imagine. The entire world came after God’s plan, the one incarnate in Jesus. A world of people over the years has gone after him, even the way we measure the years.

Getting a big crowd is due to the raising of Lazarus. Lazarus has a death warrant as well. They are after Lazarus and Jesus now. John loves irony. Lazarus receives the gift of resurrected life, only now to be the object of a lynching. They cannot celebrate the gift of life because they are groping in the darkness of enmity and fear.

Palm Sunday shows us how fast last can change in less than one week. It also shows us that we live within levels of understanding. The same event is read differently by the participants. As in the last episode of ER, life and death struggle together all of the time. Perspective determines our motives and our actions. John insists that our actions are often blind meanderings, filled with misunderstanding or partial knowledge. Even in our mistakes, we may grasp the elusive truth. Our security lies in the gift of Christ.